Timeform Betfair Racing Club - Meet the horses... / Timeform / 26 January 2011 /

Keep up to date with all the latest news on Saharia right here. Each time he runs, we will give a review of the performance and update the Timeform master rating - so remember to keep coming back.

SAHARIA 4 b.g

Trainer: Ollie Pears

Current Timeform Rating: F88



15 January 2011 - the story so far

Saharia is one of the best-bred horses the Timeform Betfair Racing Club has owned and (by the 2005 Eclipse and Irish Champion Stakes winner Oratorio and out of the listed Galtres Stakes winner Inchiri, who has produced four winners in total including the useful Inchwood) and was the first ever yearling purchased by the club, who went to 37,000 guineas to buy him at the Tattersalls sales in 2008. Having gone into training with Jeremy Noseda, Saharia, who was named by Club members, was fairly quick to repay some of that initial outlay once he made it to the course, proving far too green on his debut in a 6f maiden at Lingfield in the November of his 2-y-o season but clearly learning from that experience, as he showed when winning a similar event over 7f at Wolverhampton the following month.

That Wolverhampton run was his final outing at two, with Jeremy seeing fit to put him away until the start of the turf season proper. Saharia, who was gelded that winter, reappeared in a 7f handicap at Doncaster in May and shaped with a fair amount of promise from an opening BHA mark of 82, beaten under two lengths into fourth. Saharia ran well in the main thereafter in 2010, finishing in the frame on five of his next six starts, though as a result he earned next to no respite from the handicapper.

After finishing third in a well-contested handicap at Kempton in September, Saharia left Jeremy Noseda and made the move up north to the up-and-coming Ollie Pears. He made his first start for his new yard at Lingfield in November and ran respectably trying 1m for the first time, beaten four lengths into ninth in what turned out to be a messy race.

Saharia has run twice since and hasn't been at his best on either occasion, seeming unsuited by the drop to sprinting at Wolverhampton on his latest start (raced mostly at 7f), and the plan now is to give him a break for around six weeks and look to bring him back for the start of the turf season (acts on good to firm ground) around late-April. At present Saharia is only averagely handicapped but, hopefully, he'll drop another pound or two in the interim and it's possible that some sort of headgear will be experimented with to eke out a bit of improvement.

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